He flinched. Looking into the details of her accident hadn’t felt good, but he hadn’t felt like a vulture any more than she should have felt like a vulture for the background she’d done on him and his family. That she’d done it as part of an official job and he’d done it because he’d sensed an injustice didn’t make the situation black and white.
There was a hell of a lot of gray in the equation.
“I’m sorry, Alexa. The situation between us is complicated, but I should have told you that I knew, should have told you what I’d learned sooner.”
She held out her hand to give him his phone. “Just leave, Nick.”
He wanted to fight her, to beg her forgiveness, but he sensed it wouldn’t matter. He’d fucked up, and no amount of “complicated” could change that fact.
He took the phone and grabbed his keys off the console table before turning for the hall. She was wearing his jersey, but that was the least of his worries, and he put his coat on over his bare chest, then put on his shoes.
When he was finished he found her leaning against the wall and watching him.
“Alexa…”
Her eyes were cold. “Just go.”
18
Alexa walked through the glass doors and entered the lobby, wondering why she didn’t feel victorious. The grand jury had just returned five indictments against Orion Development. One of them had been a long shot, a rarity in a judicial system that required a preponderance of evidence to even charge a suspect with a crime.
And yet she’d felt nothing but a mild sense of satisfaction when the judge read the jury’s conclusions. There had been congratulations all around, but Judy, the paralegal who’d been working on the case and who had accompanied Alexa to the courthouse to take notes, had seemed happier than Alexa.
Normally she would have taken Judy out to lunch to celebrate, but her heart hadn’t been in it today, and she’d begged off with the excuse that she had paperwork to file so they could start preparing for a plea, or more likely, a trial. Orion would throw every legal trick in the book at them, and they had enough money to tie the case up in court for years if Alexa allowed it.
Which was why she wouldn’t allow it.
She was relieved to find the elevator empty. Her face hurt from the smile that had been plastered on her face since the verdict was read. She looked at her reflection in the brass paneling inside the elevator and wondered if the material was distorting her features or if she really did look that tired.
Instinct told her the latter was probably true. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since Friday. Since before she’d slept with Nick Murphy, before she’d found out he’d been lying to her since they met.
Well, he hadn’t lied. Not exactly. But he’d left something out, something important that he must have realized she would want to know, and not just anything, but details about the most personal, traumatic thing that had ever happened to her.
She’d felt gutted by the revelation, made all the more ugly by the way she’d found out, the text that had flashed on Nick’s phone right after they’d slept together, proof that he’d been hard at work digging through the refuse of her past behind her back.
She stepped off the elevator and waved at Kayla, the receptionist and greeter, on her way to her office.
“Congratulations,” Kayla said. “Judy called for messages and told me the good news.”
“Thanks! Another step toward justice.”
Kayla beamed and Alexa forced herself to smile back. Kayla was attending law school at night and Alexa had no doubt she was thrilled to be working in the AG’s office.
It had been a long time since Alexa had been so young, so naive, but she remembered what it felt like to believe you were making a difference, to believe in your work.
Now she just felt tired, her victory over Orion tempered by the knowledge that the war was far from over, that a million things could go sideways in the months and years that Orion would bury the AG’s office in paperwork, delaying hearings and trial dates and doing everything possible to work the system to their advantage.
She continued down the hall, trying not to think too hard about what it said that the background noise — phones ringing, fingers tapping keyboards, the hushed voices of her coworkers — soothed her. For better or worse, this place was as much home to her as her apartment, the people who worked alongside her like members of her family.
She smiled at a handful of people who congratulated her along the way and ducked with relief into her office, then kicked off her shoes and set her briefcase on her desk. She looked up when Imani appeared in the door of her office.
“Heard the good news,” she said, leaning against the door frame. “Congratulations.”
Her dark eyes shone from a face with high cheekbones and a defined chin. She wore her hair natural, and the curls framed her face like rays of the sun. Her figure was trim in a blouse and high-waisted slacks even though Alexa knew Imani loathed exercise and ate whatever she wanted.
Some people had all the luck.
“Thanks,” Alexa said. “You were right to turn me down before. We wouldn’t have gotten an indictment if we’d run with it then. I feel stupid for trying.”